Replies to post #41318 on FAT CATS

[BethanyMAnderson]

Yeah, but it's one of the first things I look at.

Before I even start delving into the meat of the company, I look at the following things:

1. Rapidity of press releases
2. Ease of verifying press releases
3. Date of last financials
4. Up to date web presence
5. Neighborhood of claimed office

If something's going to be immediately hinky, its generally going to show up in one or more of those items first.

For instance, I can't tell you how many times I've gone to do research on a company I'm covering and discovered that their address is in the middle of a highway or a parking lot, or is someone's house. A Google Earth search won't tell you everything, sure, but a subsequent whitepages search to find neighbors to that address will give you plenty to work with.

ECFL was easily busted after the CEO waved a big, red flag and released 10 PRs in a 72 hour time frame (5 in one day, in fact), claiming a company he was merging with was doing business with some big companies like GM, Waste Management, etc. A simple sending of each release to each of those companies, asking for them to verify the contents, proved that there was no such thing going on. So always be wary of a company that has PR diarrhea.